


Changeling

by Snake (Fatality145)



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-27
Updated: 2012-08-27
Packaged: 2017-11-13 00:34:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/497406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fatality145/pseuds/Snake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After so much time trying to find something that he'd lost, Kaidan's starting to believe maybe he's just looking in the wrong place, looking for the wrong thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Changeling

**Author's Note:**

> http://music.zackhemsey.com/track/changeling

Sometimes, he looked attent as he stared out of the observatory window, as though he were actually focused on what he was looking at, the swathes of stars melted to the endless abyss, the multitude of worlds light-years away only a bare flicker, infinitely distant. Sometimes, he swore that he could see them blinking out, forearm pressed to the thick, cannon-proof glass, brow pressed to the hard muscle, lips pressed together. Always pressed. Pressed for time. Pressed for stability. Pressed for faith and pressed for comfort, just anything, bleeding through.

 

                Barely was he, though. He couldn’t focus when he was idle, and maybe it was a bad thing, to be stuck in his head, innumerable thoughts shifting through endlessly. But, in the frenetic endgame, blisters of steel and fire grown beneath his skin, through his veins, such thought may have been suitable, necessary, despite action being what won wars, not contemplation.

 

                He’d wake up face down, stubbled cheek pressed into the terse covers, over the Alliance emblem, the material not yet worn in through use since he’d gotten back. A rush of energy would seep through his system, crackling, as his nerves would return from stasis, faint azure roiling along his flesh.

 

                It had been years that he had spent in a bed alone, a small bunk meant for nothing more than rest, nothing less. He thought he might have gotten used to it, and he had, for a while, at least superficially, back on land, on a different ship. But he was on the Normandy, again, the realest memories he had of the craft not being those of him under thin covers by himself. Chances were that’s why it stung like it did, calloused fingers and bruised and split knuckles curling into the sheets as he took a slow breath, eyes closing, inhaling a scent he didn’t want to. His own wasn’t good when it wasn’t mingled with another.

 

                As how words didn’t win wars, words weren’t a definite ending to prolonged turmoil, ingrained guilt and instilled anger – not hate, misunderstanding and confusion, pain, maybe, but there was never hate. You couldn’t really hate someone you didn’t really know, not anymore.

 

                He had enough reason to get out of bed, to shuck on his Alliance blues, shave his face, at least a little bit, get himself presentable and ready. He thought, sometimes, that it might be nice to have more of an incentive to stay under the covers, meshed with a warmth not just his own, soft breath exhaled against the nape of his neck or into the hollow of his throat.

 

                The looks between them weren’t stolen glances – they hadn’t been, not for a while. It was more staring, straining, trying to find something that he’d known, what he’d loved, desperately, fatedly. He would catch himself, hazel eyes locked onto that sharp profile, that soft mouth oddly placed in a battle-worn face. It was different than from what he remembered, but, despite the sanguine swimming in the blue, those eyes were still the same, despite the cracks embedded in the flesh, that jaw was still the same. That freckle along the column of his throat that he’d kissed over, half hidden under armour, was still there.

 

                He had lost a part of himself at the crash, and then, after two years of trying to get it back, he had been torn away, again. He wasn’t sure if he could get it back, now, no third time’s charm.

 

                As he looked, then, the change wasn’t as drastic as it was when he had found the ghost on Horizon, when it was like it was just to spite him, just to hike up that daunting feeling, progress that drinking he’d lied about. It wasn’t so much going out to drink with friends as it was sitting in front of a monitor with a half filled glass in his hands in the dark, the deep taste of whiskey on his tongue, burning his taste and his head.

 

                The time apart, forced apart, had changed the both of them, he guessed, working himself to the blood and the bone, breath heavy and hot out from his tight lungs, muscles clenched and flexed and torn only to repair into tougher scar tissue, reinforced metal, tungsten bullets and stronger migraines accents by the odd nosebleed.

 

                ‘ _Look, I trust you_ ,’ had become something that now just tripped off his tongue without him thinking about it, and he wasn’t sure if it was sincere in its aggravating simplicity. As how you couldn’t hate someone you didn’t know, you couldn’t exactly trust them, either. They still worked the same on the field, eyes on the six, eyes on the field, watching flanks and blind spots, but battle trust was both different and kind of the same as on the personal level.

 

                Time put things in perspective, but it also took perspective away, leaving things in their raw state that couldn’t be denied or skewed. There was something still there, painfully beating, clinging to him, singed into his flesh, his mind, refusing to let go no matter how much he wanted it to, how much he knew it would make things easier not only for him, but for the both of them.

 

                He still didn’t know what he wanted, not entirely, but it was something along those lines, an inevitable gravity that just kept pulling him back despite how hard he tried to get away from it, something he didn’t think he could deny all that much longer.

 

                He couldn’t tell if the faint electricity between them was from the mere presence of him in the room, or if it were his biotics flaring slightly, maybe a bit of both, acting off each other. He didn’t have to look at him to know he was there; he didn’t have to hear the hissing slide of the observatory’s door to know he was coming in, and he didn’t have to see it for himself to know that those bicoloured eyes glanced at him.

 

                “Shepard…” Kaidan started, unsure of how to end it, leaving the name on his tongue, the sound lingering in the air. He shook his head, ducking it a bit, a small smile, almost mirthless, coming to his lips. He was weird sometimes, and Shepard was, too, the man inclining towards him.

 

                “Yeah?”

 

                Narrowing his eyes softly, he looked down at his crossed arms, the smatters of scars in pale flesh, long past the point of pain, mere memories, now. The words hung in his chest like cobwebs; he just had to cough them out, shifting the weight between his feet.

 

                “What’s on your mind?”

 

                The contraction and three words meant more than they were. They always did. Shepard was the kind of person who said so much with so little, sometimes, could speak fables with so much as a look, a stare, a gaze. Hell, his own being was a legend in itself. He was more insightful than he let on, most of the time, Kaidan guessed it was just easier that way, clearing his throat and looking back out through the window to the stars, the tremor of mass effect waves flourishing over the ship.

 

                “Do you…” He laughed, the sound dry, small, “…Can we start over, do you think?” A clean slate, or, at least, as clean as he could make it with the blood smears and dented armour plating that would never be able to be beaten back into shape, no matter how much tempering was given.

 

                A heartbeat wasn’t even spared as Shepard turned to him, placing a firm but gentle hand on his shoulder, catching his attention. A grin spread over those soft lips, the bare shadow of a scar cracking them in the corner, the man holding out one of his hands.

 

                “I’m Commander Shepard. It’s good to meet you,”

 

                Kaidan looked back at him. He didn’t know the expression that was on his face, it was probably even a little dumb looking. He didn’t expect it to be that easy, but maybe Shepard wanted just the same. Kaidan would have to bet on that. Definitely, Shepard was weird, he always had been, quirks trying to be hidden behind military protocol, those quirks showing through even more oddly when he attempted to keep them at bay.

 

                Kaidan might have lost a part of himself, but he was beginning to think that maybe he could get a new part to replace it.


End file.
